2. What is the context of the production of traditional foods? Why is it necessary to characterize traditional foods?
There are some important dates in the history of the food industry (Table 1). One can consider that the modern food industry was born in the 30’s with the introduction of the household refrigerator (Anonymous, 2005). In fact, before this date the classical way to preserve food was fermentation and from the moment a convenient way to store food was for public use, the ways to preserve food could move, from salting to drying, from drying to canning, from canning to freezing (Laberge, 2005).
That is why, from the middle of the XXth century, great developments of processed products were observed as compared to the raw products that were formerly used for cooking. Ready to eat foods and individual portions appeared (Deneux, Bizet, & Dussaut, 1999).
This mini-revolution was followed during the 60’s–70’s by a great modification of the structure of the Food companies. For example in France, it was observed that food companies were merging in big groups. Many artisan products became manufactured products.